User:Cedric/Herbalist
Ordinate/Subordinate traits: DEX/CHaRm (if non-elvan/aryan) CHR/DEX if elven or aryan. However, to get to the level of the Tree Elder, you need PER/CHaRm.
Herbalist
Tier Path: Sprite -> -> Herbalist -> Tree Elder
Skills:
- Inner: Herbalism and adding knowledge from divined arcana
- Outer: Warding, has dominion over territories like leaders on the male-ish side.
- Offense: Healing/Telepathy with other herbalists
- Defense: Ability to slip between the cracks of Time and be invisible.
Boon to a party:
- Blessings from the god/dess or safe passages within her territories
- Defensive action to move without incrementing time.
- Herbal satchels for healing wounds, removing poison
- Amulets and charms
XP gained by: Mana held in forests (or meadows) kept by the player (1:1). Removing poisons.
Mana goes to: Amulets or personal power (+AC) or forests and meadows they’ve claimed
Dice Use: 1d6 spinners accumulate with territory you hold within and represent the “aura” of your domain. This sets an alignment vector for the domain which lends power to all the elements you’re caring for in proportion to LVL. Can roll each round you are within your territory. You choose which hex you wish to upgrade and If the dice is higher than your current spinners, you get to upgrade it. There should be no upper bound to the amount the spinners (dice) can be within a territory but it should be exponentially more difficult. You can add one dice per LVL if your DEX score is 20, otherwise 1 per 4 levels if you PdEeRx score is average (PER score of 1, is once per 100 levels), modified by your PER score. 1/(PER/20)
Lore: Herbalists began with the need for healing before magic began. Their modus operandi is to be in tune with the Oerth, for most healing is about the balance with it. Ultimately, they hope to create a world that is only beauty and balance.
Group dynamics: Other herbalists can combine territories without competing, adding their values together as one. A tree eldder must be holding dominion above them for this to stay stable. A large, old, tall tree may be contended for by several elders and this may need be resolved. Shrines.
Real-life mechanic: Can make a song or chime that they must sing to keep their AC scores high without re-rolls. This song should encode the power of the forest/glade/mountain/sea such that others will carry it with them far and wide.`
Moral Code: Everybody should respect the power of our Mother Oerth and the creatures which live there.
This class works with Nature. S/he makes unguents and herbal tinctures that adventurers and commoners who are like-aligned can get healing, life-force, and perhaps other powers. They are defensive in nature and accumulate dice as they accumulate territory which add to their domains AC. They also have domain over soaps and candlemaking. They can build shrines in nature where travelers who like thier creations and designs can leave offerings. Unlike druids, which specialize in an element, grows mastery in all four of the alchemical elements in which to create life: fire, water, wind, earth. All together, these four make another: the trees (known as “wood” in Chinese alchemy), the holders of the power of nature and its wisdom.
An herbalist can find any herb within a conducive environment after (LVL_of_herb/2) rounds (or by the rolls) — if they are aligned with a Tree Elder or goddess; XXX see the goddess alignment vector) or LVL_of_herb rounds if they are not. Doesn’t have curse ability like witch class, except in the case where her/his shrine is desecrated. If they are in areas conducive to certain kinds of powers which create the herbs, there can be a bonus modifier (or negative, like in a dungeon).
While other PCs are talking or using their action slots for activity, herbalist can be rolling their dice to see if they spot an herb.
If female, DEX is the valued trait (otherwise can't organize INT-based objects very well). Essential oils mixed with alcohol: 1:1 can be used to be make tinctures. These can then be diluted fto make more use of the hard-to-make oils.
Defense actions allow the herbalist to use 100 mana to travel her whole range, such that she can use her 400 (600) mana to get four rounds of travel to other’s one round. She does this by slipping between the awareness of man and other beings and utilizing the mana/awareness normally used for digestion and metablism to feed to the root of the gods (or elves/aryan races) which can use it to make time. Some beings are immune to this and still spot them moving, like liches and dragons, some demons, or high-level explorer classes. So they tell the DM, “while you guys start your ranged attracks, I’m going to try to go around them.” If spotted, the round re-starts.
Use of this defensive action, costs 0.5-5 HP (0.5 HP for DEX=20, 2HP for DEX=5, 5HP for DEX=1) for 100 mana sacrificed to slip between time. This lost HP then gets recharged as normal. Only 1 thrust action is available during this time, if one wishes to make a strike. . Keep a paper map of your domain and you can fill in your hex tiles with the dice roll. Power for the area is calculated by the total rolls. The dice are decided by visitation, density of healthy life, god/desses and Tree Edlers over-seeing with you. These rolls change with weather affects, power battles with the herbalist, day alignment vectors, and life that moves and interacts within. With enough power, you can attract even Unicorn to the area. The average aura per tile gives AC protection for the life protected therein. Each point value is worth 100 mana. So a tile with 40 points has 4000 mana (roughly equivalent in XP and potentially takeable by malevalent forces)
??? Dice accumulate with territory held. In order to use these dice mechanics, you must have dice the color of the domain(s) you hold, they must not be clear dice (except for shrines which are covered differently). If you hold enough power in the domain, these dice can make “luck” attacks on your behalf (causing other people to fumble or lose defenses). Herbalist must have mana for these rolls to have power — at 0 mana, these rolls mean nothing. Ideally, these would be 0-based dice and have as many sides as the LVL of the herbalist (when they are holding dominion over their domain within it’s perimeter — their mana lends it the power). These territorial dice are for female herbalists. Male herbalists build structures: tree dwellings, animal shelters, bird houses.
Herbalists working together should be under the same tree (as a sigil of sorts) and can combine territories to build power for their purposes.
Has no gods (or elders) if ronin, though s/he may bow to some hero or heroine and hope for some good will or luck to be bestowed upon them. She also can pray to the Spirits and Trees for guidance. Gets to choose what XP she wants to keep if she involves herself with adventurers who kill, for whatever she keeps, that counts against her karma. The remaining are offered to the party or to her gods, so she can stay pure.
The herbalist strives to live in such harmony with nature, that s/he is effectively immortal and ages one year for every(?) tree death in thier forest, for trees have no natural enemy and are meant to be immortal. So, in time, abilities to create great trees come eventually, because the need arises from Oerth itself. This is how the female becomes the goddess.
Has an innate foreboding sense (F only?), which can give a sense of dangers from the Unknown (dice roll: each round that the herbalist is in a state of hightened perception (searching or stealthy) she and the realm (DM) roll a dice, if hers is higher she can get a piece of informaiton available about the danger). As you become more advanced and become one with the trees, you can guide others naturally with this sense. These help give an intuition of things which may otherwise be unknown to her/him. On this scale, 1 means "I haven't seen this before", 10 means "Scary as hell, will probably get minced." Eventually (like, perhaps lvl50), this develops into perfect intuition.
Herbalists get to NAME individual trees (their unique ability of logos) and forests (which might also get named by Explorers and such). Affinity to certain trees allows cross-communion with trees of same type anywhere on the same land/continent. Other nice abilities include the ability to tune into the histories that have happened around trees, as the trees record subtle differences because of events that happen. These can be read by the attuned, so that, for example, they can tell you that someone passed by there approximately 3 months ago.
Unguents are made with the powerfully-scented edibles (generally), although what classifies as weeds could be used, as they also have a power. The scent connect to the person’s immune system and rebuilds it from the knowledge of the plant. For this reason weeds, however, noxious and powerful, aren’t generally used — they may not have the right knowledge that is in balance.
Female herbalists get re-rolls if in battle on all Oerth godrolls (as long as their ASM is above 10). Male elf herbalists get the same if their PER is above 10. Generally don't carry weapon because they have the power to heal themselves and stay away from danger, but when they need to, they would probably choose an azurite halberd or some such natural and magic-resistant weapon.
Her power can be used to create powerful herbal solutions, called herbal sachels or unguents. The power of her mana helps the forest bring things to her and to find the things she needs easily. If s/he has helped *name* the things in the forest, it will also bring things that s/he desires to help her/his efforts. If an herbalist claims a forest and visits all of its boundaries, it becomes hers and she knows when people enter and leave her domain and when animals are sick, when birds are about to produce young, and when fish are getting toxic from bad water (or when water is getting polluted because via fish reaction). She can gain XP after visiting the boundaries of her domain equivalent to the sq yard.
Different herbs have different dice to find them. The more powerful the herb, the more rare, generally, unless she holds dominion over the forest, for example. A clover might be 1d4, for example, while monk’s head a 3d8, oregano 2d8. Herbalists can be rolling their dice each round as an action to keep an eye out for useful herbs. Herbs hung to dry will be protected from rot, but if they touch the ground, they are prone to spoilage.
Herbalist can heal many ailments just by the power of her/his voice, touch, and love as they stay supremely tuned to the natural, organic body. Pretty much all psychological ailments liked stunned, shock, even things like petrificaiton can healed with the proper attunement and relationship to the gods (they have to inauire as to the true dynamic that made the event).
The best, most powerful healing herbs are gathered from special or sacred places that have the energy to grow them. Datura, for example, grows in the desert around the Well of Dragons. “Covens” often cultivate and share their hangings of dried herbs together or go on outings together to show junior herbalists how to identify and pick the best while keeping their locations secret and protected.
Because it would take years for her/him to see the result (and XP) of her efforts, s/he creates shrines out in the forests -- or anywhere where she can turn her mana into higher life. Shrines help encode the intentions of his/her efforts and should be made to do such. Passers through the forest can leave offerings at her/his shrines. S/he gains whatever level of the offering as a type of future -- the belief by the giver that her creations will result in the value sacrificed. If it is left by a higher level character, she gets the difference in mana. Higher level characters give mana. If the level of the character isn't known, it can be guessed.
Intergate: Herbalists can communicate with one another across space and perhaps Time itself, through the Weave. This allows some special abilities. To activate the link the receiver must be either attuned to the sender or in a space of extra time-slots where new data outside her/his immediate environment can enter. For men to have these abilties they must be alchemists with ASM of 10 or more(?).
Levels by the amount of life they add to the natural world. The mana held by the life therein counts towards her XP (1:1 mana added to XP gained). In this way, she creates the forests/mountain ranges/rivers/etc which have her blessing with them. She can create life or heal life and as she expends her mana to do so, it counts as EMP and gets converted to an equal amount of XP. If she creates the life, s/he has to see the successful result of her efforts for it to be turned into experience and gets to keep the value of that experience as time advances in the realms and the creations continue. Or, more accurately, the "XP" of the life generated (i.e. how much power the plant or animal has: a factor of purity towards species, age, species chokmah (encoded wisdom), health). Her level can otherwise fluctuate if she doesn't anchor her experience in her own protected domain. For this reasonXXXIn this wayXXX, anthe herbalist can perfect each species towards it`s highest ideals and utility for the birds and other animals of the forest. Bountiful harvests may also get rewarded if s/he has added thier blessing to the land surrounding thier forests. XXXHerbalists should anchor something each time they level. They might make a sign/sigil, erect a shrine, claim a forest, name a tree, tie a wind chime to a branch, stack rocks towards a purpose that she knows, or put a charm around the neck of one of her animals, etc., etc.
If she does things like hang tuned wind-chimes, she can attract elves into her forest and make the forests enchanted (not the from elves themselves, note, but from her attunement to the sounds.) Enchanted forests affect everything living in it, adding either LVL benefits or advantage on all rolls from outsiders, because the keeper of the area rolls with them.
She may have a forest that she has claimed as her own, for example, leaving sigils or other wordless markings, chimes tuned to a special chords (animals for example may learn to associated it with a particular herbalist and know that it's safe), and winding paths into points of interest, raising the vibration with higher mana (enchanted). If a level 5 adventurer places an equivalent (level 5) offering at her shrine, the elders note it and keep tabs on the growing interest and abilities, she gets the equivalent in mana from her/his elders. If the character offers something of lesser value than their own level, she gets "blessed" with the difference in mana. A level 50 monk, leaving a gift of a level 20 emerald, allows her to jump the monk`s level and to raise her CON by (LVL_of_gift/10), getting the tag “blessed”. The remainder in sacrifice is a show of affection. She can lose levels if she allows a highly-aligned warrior to die. To this end, she may work with Magistrates to establish laws and develop civility. Selling herbs is a way to stay connection to civilization, also.
CON values are significant, because an herbalist adds +AC value to all(?) of the living elements within her domain based on (LVL/2)*(CON/20+PTY/20). (If these are cut down, they no longer receive this power of the herbalist). It is bidirectional, so that the herbalist can draw on the power of her area, or the area use some of the power of the herbalist. Also, depending on her PTY (dedication to her realm), she gets higher MAX_HP = PTY/20 * (# of animals + bird couples + fish children groups)(?). PTY is to the highest Tree Elders or goddess.
The perceptivity of a high-level Tree Elder is so in-tune, she can tell you that there is a bird in the upper branch of a specific tree in her forest. Potions that employ the use of avacado oil (with a pinch of the respective herb) allow the quaffer to become one with various herbs. S/he can hold a found fragment of a tree to help alignment to a tree and see how it may associate with wands. (Such a branch may become a wand of power, allowing the herbalist to draw on the power of the tree for her magic.)
As she stores mana, it attracts the attention of the Earth-dieties (sometime simply advanced Tree-elders) and she has good luck, like food that she needs, or maybe an enchanted sword that she can to confer to a worthy warrior. Rather than guilds, higher-level herbalists and tree-elders magically protect the youngers` shrines and special places in the forest so that gifts left by others are received unmolested.
Can create herbal satchels for treating various sickness (did you try eating a grue?): curing paralysis, hallucinations, sleepiness, have good luck, and even complete restoration. These herbal recipes should be kept secret, as using them without proper knowledge from this class dilutes their power. Also, they could turn against you. Sell these at an apothecary to acquire money. A complete restoration can fetch up to 1000 gold.
Gifts left at her shrines that the character cannot use for her higher-purposes can be sold in the villages to get the player money. In this way, players can shed unneeded items in their inventory without wasting the offerer`s effort. test This class can sprinkle some grain-meal or other ceremonious offering over corpses in the woods, to bring more light into them and prevent her domain from getting weaker as the corpse decomposes. A player team for example, might kill a goblin and she will offer it to the gods, bringing better luck (higher alignment) to the party. As she gets the respect of large animals, they can add to her power (mana and PTY) and protect the woods or other landscapes with which she might challenge herself.
Has some command at the small scale over elementals, like to build a seed for a tree. At level 20 can make a herb. At level 40 could make tree sapling. Has art of jewelry: amulets, bracelets, and such, imbibing them with special powers (or perhaps just luck) by the use of rare gems and decoration. Each gem color connects to a different Earth diety with differing powers. Can make nature portals with stone circles to call elementals or other magic.
To build life, the player must learn everything there is to know about the species in question. They might sit and meditate with he species, communing with its nature, noting the details of its kind in her notebook. This usually takes considerable experience. But once known, the universe supports her/his efforts and produces the species. The greatness of the creation depends on the level. It will cost some X amount of mana to imbue life into it. A one-foot sapling, perhaps 400 mana.
Some herbalists "bank" their mana through intricate (color, shape, density) use of visual and threaded forms, making symbols, weaves, or other designs to hold the power. Spirits of the realms favor such proper use of form. It essentially trades work for appreciation which re-converts into mana. They might also work with druids to place teleport circles and long-distance markers on trails made of giant megaliths to stand the test of time.
Gains levels with CHR and XP gains from knowledge, but needs PTY to do it virtuously, gets better with INT, becomes trusted with CON, masterful with ASM, to eventually become WISe...
At around Paragon, with the learning of the different wisdom in trees, she may find special boughs (branches) of certain trees and fashion wands out of them for herself, not to sell to mages and shops, for the power of these wands takes power from the trees. Different wands give power to different kinds of spells, depending on the journey and wisdom of the various Tree-Elders who hold power with the trees.
Gets fab from lore surrounding her character and her own use of charisma, special weaves she employs. Partners well with faeries.
The amount of eorth support to do level 60 tasks is enormous. Many herbalists content themselves with the ability to be in such harmony as to be immortal. Because of the maturity needed for higher-level work, many abilities don't open up until after level 10.
An herbalist health is diminished if her forests and other parts of the world under her domain are infected with oppositely-aligned vermin (like orcs for a positive-aligned herbalist). With each infection she loses mana equivalent to the NPCs or PCs MASS*40/3*SPEED. A 1 pound NPC infection should cost about 10 mana/round while in her domain, but this all depends on the relative SIZE compared to the size of her domain. If such a lady posts requests at the boundary of her forest in her own handwriting, what lad could refuse?
Herbalist can become one with all the life that is under their domain at level 70 or so, capable of knowing when each herb is picked from their domain and addressing every leaf individually of their trees. LVL 5-10 : animal suffering; LVL20 herbs, LVL 50: trees. LVL70 +animalos consciousness
The Level of the herb or tree clover 1: lessor herbs: 2-10 (parsely, chives) ; middle herbs: 10-20 (oregano, thyme,, mint) , greater herbs: 21-30 (sage, tarragon), eldeherbs: rosemary (lvl50, elderberry/pepper). herbs: Sunflower (LVL70), datura/cumin/marjoam ( LVL 100). Cooking herb (or herbs for flavor) are the opposite side of medicinal herbs (which usually taste awful). One could say that the goal is to make a world where people don’t get sick, turning all medicines into epic flavors.
All cooking herbs are delicate (rather fragile, non barbed leaves). If they aren’t delicate, they are not completely perfected and transformed from medicine. Such gentle herbs don’t like being picked and one must form a relationship to them in order not to be caught by them or the herbs turn woody and inedible. Hence herbalism. One could say that the medicinals are representations of the dragon elements which made them, hence their pungency. But these components get tamed by the herbalist of power and turned into delicate herb with epic flavor. These dragon elements contribute color to the flowers on the herbs. Herbal flowers are distinguished from love flowers by their asymmetry and leaves which are commonly (exclusively?) spiked with nettles.
Herbalist, rather than using magic directly, can use intention and invent things for her realm. The DM must decide the mechanics of the invention. For example, wind chimes (depending on the quality of the chord), may give up to 3d6 protection of every creature in the forest — regardless if audible (the trees record and pass it on). So, if a hunter were wanting to kill an animal in her forest, the animal NPC gets to roll a 3d6 each round to negate whatever damage roll by the hunter. More accurately, might be #ofwitchesandherbalistpresidingd#LEVEL_of_highest_member.
Herbalist who are Shou race can use mushrooms for herbal medicine, otherwise fungi are not used. They can inhale powedered muchrooms or ingest them. The inhaliation method is used for thos shou who are connected to a god and it puts them in touch with it. So-called “edible” mushroom has made your world insane — keep it out of Forgotten Realms.
Herbalist gain XP by holding domain over the natural world (in square yards), but they gain their LEVEL by attaining various milestones:
Levels are commensurate with ability:
1. can make a four-leaf clover
2. edible herb, like menthol ("mint")
3. sunflower keiki and other wildflowers
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9. minor medicinal herb
20: tree 10yr 40: fruit tree 60: oak tree 60years
Roughly, the #level years of tree growth, given expertise and affinity with the tree.
It’s a strange twist of fate, but the herbalist never quite know s where her creations show up in the world. If she has a Tree Elder helper, it can tell her magically when she sees one of her creations in the world—much like it gives XP in the Dreamer class, but rather than XP, she gets power pts(?). …something like renown points but at 1/10 the level.
Herbalists get more power to remove powerful poisons with their level. To heal a 5th level poison requires level 50 and above. A level 1 poison can be healed at level 10. No herb is necessary, although a pungent one is sometimes used to placate the patient ("Oooo, that smells powerful!"), otherwise the wise woman uses her connection to the mother and womb to dislodge the poison. The bigger the animal and more different from the herbalist the more difficult it is to seek out the contaminant. Mammals can essentially be considered the same as humans for this purpose, but dragons, sea creatures (different but accessible to the herbalist, a jerking motion by the patient generally points out when she has "connected" to the poison or contaminant),....STUB —— DM notes:
- Area tiles can accumulate power (through grouping, for example) and attract powerful creatures. The kind of creature attracted will have XP value equal to the equivalent Mana/XP value of the area of which the herbalist is the steward. With enough power, unicorns should be attractible. Of course, the oppositely-aligned are attracted to such areas, also.
- Each type of tree has special wisdom. This wisdom is encoded or visible by the particular coloration of any flowers (which all trees are capable of producing when they’re particularly full of power). This is a special arcane knowledge, much like RGB codes on color computer screens or the unique bands of color of a spectrograph in chemistry. These subtle codes can only be divined by become one with the tree or imbibing a specially prepared tea or tincture.
- If anyone uses a tree branch as a wand, it's power will generally come from the tree and you must take the MANA to offset this.
- Must figure out if dice are accumulated for the area governed or by the LVL of the player. Dice beyond a certain coverage must be gifted by another (and still conform to color restrictions: blues for bodies of water, greens for leafy areas, browns for wooded areas, gray for mountainous, clear for celstial etc.).
- Where rolling over half is more-or-less assured, player doesn’t have to roll, but must keep the dice at the game anyway.
- Dice can get accursed and held by others.
- Pollen is used as a homeopath: a minutest quantity you can to get past their own immune system, and then the practitioner’s knowledge and power to the work of rooting out the problem and (re)-uniting it with the love that made the flower.
- Special quality or ability: can generate life.
- Special equipment: amulets
- Characters get more mana the more dice health in an herbalists region.
- Desecration of a shrine is a severe act, like killing a person. The XP might be rewarded, but your alignment becomes evil if it’s a good-aligned shrine (and vice versa). You get a curse from the one who created it and the label “evil” if it was a good-aligned shrine and “good” if it was an altar to evil.
- Her unique defensive action depletes the energy stored in the womb for trading action with Time itself. If pregnant this energy is not available without threatening the infant(s).
- An herbalists amulets may encode hidden knowledge of teleport configurations.
- removing poisons works approximately like this: this author recognizes up to 5 levels of poison. A poison lodges itself in the many layers of the soul with the 5th being the core level, something akin to when Frodo gets stabbed by an etheric sword. He gets a soul sickness that no normal herb can heal. A level 1 poison is like a nettle. The XP rewarded is something along the lines of 100 * level of poison ^ level of poison. Deeper level poisons than 5 are not known, but the bigger the victim, the greater the difficulty, in which case, increase the factor from 100 to 100*(# of human weight units of mass).
- The song for their other PC interaction should be about their love for their domain and all of the creatures within in it. The audience gets a silent vote by show of hands at the end (no noise that could make people feel stupid for singing, but if they do, remind them that it only really matters that the animals and children like it, not others). To prevent this intimate reveal, they can confer their strategems for protecting their domains and avoid conflict.
—— Notes to self:
- This class can live freely in the forest if they’ve defined meaningful boundaries for her/his domain and are caring for it. (In our world, s/he would be given a radio to report anything notable to the county commissioner.)